The cost of living in Ipoh, against Perak and the other mid-sized cities

DOSM's 2024 figures for the Kinta district, which contains Ipoh:

• Mean monthly household expenditure — RM4,648
• Mean monthly household income — RM6,758
• Median monthly household income — RM5,136
• Gini coefficient — 0.391
• Poverty rate — 3.8%

For Perak as a whole: expenditure RM4,232, mean income RM6,173, median RM4,687, Gini 0.298, poverty 6.9%.

Against the other mid-sized state capitals a mover is likely to weigh:

• Expenditure: Ipoh RM4,648 · Kota Kinabalu RM4,726 · Kuching RM5,184
• Median income: Ipoh RM5,136 · Kota Kinabalu RM5,896 · Kuching RM6,741
• Poverty: Ipoh 3.8% · Kota Kinabalu 12.0% · Kuching 7.7%

Ipoh is the cheapest of the three on household spending and records much the lowest poverty rate, on a lower median income than either Borneo capital.

Source: Department of Statistics Malaysia — Household Income and Expenditure: Administrative Districts, read 4 October 2026

Read the caveat before the numbers are useful. These are Malaysian households, surveyed by the national statistics office — not an expatriate budget. A foreign resident's spending diverges in four predictable places: rent in expatriate-favoured areas, international school fees, private rather than public healthcare, and imported food. It converges on everything else.

Perak records a Gini coefficient of 0.298 — the second-lowest of any Malaysian state, behind only Terengganu's 0.263. Yet Kinta, its largest district, records 0.391, which is above the national run of districts and above Kuching's 0.349.

So the equal state contains an unequal city. The practical reading is that Perak's statewide figure is carried by its smaller districts, and that an average drawn from the state will understate the range you encounter in Ipoh itself. Where a city and its state diverge this far, the district figure is the one to plan against.

The gap between Kinta's mean income of RM6,758 and its median of RM5,136 says the same thing another way: the mean sits 32% above the median, so a minority of higher earners is lifting the average.

Set against the places most movers compare, on mean monthly household expenditure:

• Kuala Lumpur — RM8,178
• Johor Bahru — RM6,764
• Melaka Tengah — RM6,527
• Penang island (Timur Laut) — RM6,416
• Kuching — RM5,184
• Kota Kinabalu — RM4,726
• Ipoh (Kinta) — RM4,648

Ipoh is the least expensive on this list. The gap to Kuala Lumpur is roughly RM3,530 a month, which is the largest cost step available between two Malaysian cities of any size. Against Penang island it is around RM1,770 a month.

The pattern across Malaysia holds in Ipoh and is worth stating plainly: local costs scale with the local economy and insurance does not. A policy is priced on your age and your cover level, not your postcode. Moving from Kuala Lumpur to Ipoh cuts the household benchmark by roughly RM3,530 a month and changes your premium by nothing at all.

Public treatment is charged at the Ministry of Health's foreigner rates — RM40 outpatient, RM120 specialist, RM100 emergency — before any ward or procedure charge, and private hospitals charge private rates.

Two limits worth settling before a move, because they apply wherever in Malaysia you land. The cover we arrange is worldwide — the United States is the one exception. And pre-existing conditions are excluded, which is a question to resolve before a move rather than after one.